I feel that I am sucked into the great whirlpool of Vast Events.

I don't care a bit about being disillusioned afterwards.

The experience has done me good, made a man of me and sent me back to Wellingsford as an oracle.

And if you bring me a man who declares that he does not like being an oracle, I will say to his face that he is an unblushing liar.
All this is by way of preface to the statement that on the third of May (vide diary) I went to the club.

It was just after lunch and the great smoking-room was full of men in khaki and men in blue and gold, with a sprinkling of men, mostly elderly, in mufti; and from their gilt frames the full-length portraits of departed men of war in gorgeous uniforms looked down superciliously on their more sadly attired descendants.